A Monogram cheapie (made for $8,000, which was
$3,000 more
than their
usual oater in the series) directed and scripted by
Robert N. Bradbury.
It has John Wayne as John Travers, trying to look cool
acting out this
improbable plot. Travers is a stranger who rides into
town and foils a
stagecoach holdup after the driver was shot, and
rescues Anita Matlock
(Verna Hillie) from the runaway horses. She's the
niece of leading
citizen
Matt Matlock (George 'Gabby' Hayes), who meets her
uncle for the
first-time.
He's the former partner with her father in the ranch
and when her dad
was
killed Anita inherited his half-share. Matt informs
her the rustlers
stole
all the cattle and the untrustworthy cowhands all
quit, and urges her
to
sell her share to him and go back east. When the new
sheriff is killed
in the street from someone unseen, Travers takes the
job. We later
learn
the shooter hid in a phony tree stump, where he gained
entry because a
secret tunnel runs under the town.

Warning: spoiler in the next
paragraph

Travers partners with the Indian Yak (Yakima Canutt)
and
soon discovers
that the mysterious head of a ruthless gang is called
The Shadow. The
outlaw
gives his orders from behind the wall of a safe
located in the back
room
of a saloon. Travers soon finds the tunnel The Shadow
uses to reach
his
destinations undetected. Travers then foils The
Shadow, who is revealed
as Matt, from mowing down the town with a machine gun.
Jake, who is
Matlock's
cook, tells Anita that Matt's not really her uncle but
assumed that
role
when the villain killed her father and real uncle. The
moral of the
story
could be 'Never trust your uncle unless he's really
your uncle.' The
film
comes with a happy ending, as Travers marries Anita
and we view them a
few years later with their toddler and Yak teaching
him a war dance as
Anita mockingly frowns. REVIEWED ON
8/19/2005
GRADE: C -